


Burn

by EphemeralSonder (MermaidMayonnaise)



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, I wrote this for AP Lit, Object: fire, Person: my best friend Jeb, Theme: you'll see, an object and a person and a theme, basically a longer and better written version of "The Silver Flute", or maybe you won't. all of my student editors said there wasn't one, validate me, we had to include:
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-24
Updated: 2019-05-24
Packaged: 2020-05-19 15:13:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19359511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MermaidMayonnaise/pseuds/EphemeralSonder
Summary: Maybe it’s a dream, maybe nothing else is real; after all, those who play with fire are bound to get burned.





	Burn

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote the majority of this on my birthday, May 17. (Only my stalkers and/or devoted readers will know my birthday now, as they are the only ones who will have clicked on this backdated work.)   
> It was for my short story in AP Lit. No one will ever read this except me, but I wanted to post this anyway. If I'm self-indulgent, I might as well go all the way.

Maybe it’s a dream. Maybe nothing else is real.

I’m standing beside a melting pot― an  _ actual  _ melting pot, a big cast iron thing that must weigh more than a full-grown mare.

A filthy white chef’s hat is perched on my head. It would have been funny if the damned hat didn’t keep slipping down over my eyes. It was made to fit a grown man, and I am (unfortunately, some might interject) neither grown nor a man.

A fire burns below the pot, and the flames are orange and crackling. Inside, a combination of soup, stew, and gruel bubbles merrily. Although the meal is nothing more than a combination of grain and vegetables thrown together with water and the entire force of my will, it manages to smell decent despite having the color and consistency of vomit.

I stir the mess half-heartedly with a wooden spoon as long as my arm, then hastily begin to actually mix (full-heartedly) as the first soldier approaches with a wooden bowl.

A line of men instantly forms behind the soldier, and almost as quickly a fistfight breaks out.

A soldier in his twenties, blond, files into line. Another grizzled soldier comes up behind him and says, loudly and angrily, “What are you doing?”

Blondie looks puzzled. He must be in his late teens and his face is clean and smooth. “Getting my food. It’s time for dinner.”

“No ye aren’t,” the other man slurs. I catch a whiff of alcohol. Soldiers aren’t supposed to drink on duty, but that’s none of  _ my _ business. “Ye aren’t gettin’  _ mah  _ food, tha’s fer right sure.”

“Excuse me?”

Grizzle whomps him with his fist, right in the face. Blondie gives a cry, blood streaming from his nose, and slams his empty wooden bowl on Grizzle’s head. The bowl forms some sort of absurd hat. My own chef’s hat slips over my eyes again, which is a shame. One of the great pleasures in life is observing a good barroom brawl. Even though this isn’t a barroom― it’s outside in a clearing. This part of the forest is dead, and the soldiers quite literally had to clear the place. Trunks and sticks lie haphazardly on the ground.

Honestly. Give them enough time, and these Confederate soldiers will wipe themselves out for us.

It’s worth mentioning that at this point, hello, I’m a Union spy. I was sent to gather intelligence on General Jeb Stuart’s cavalry. They’ve been causing the Union some problems during the war.

In all honesty, the war has been treating  _ me _ fairly well. Neither side has discovered that, in actuality, I am not a male. I’m a late bloomer, puberty-wise, and a little known fact is that a loose shirt and a haircut conceals more than people think. 

I originally cross-dressed to join the Union side of the army. I thought I could make a difference; someone had to, so it might as well be me. Although, to be honest, I thought war and spying for the opposite side had slightly more glory than serving gruel to drunkards.

It’s my own fault that I unintentionally got sent to snoop on the Confederates. Although my original intention wasn’t to be involved with information reconnaissance and national espionage (was it national if the country was split in two when the South seceded?), I proved that I’m good at sneaking around, evidenced by the fact that I stole into one of the commanding officers of the Union army and looked at their very important documents.

They were battle plans. I couldn’t make heads or tails of them― I wasn’t born a ‘military gal’― but when they caught me, they didn’t throw me out.

“You’re going to spy on Jeb Stuart’s camp,” the commanding officer (he was some generic colonel; I’m terrible with names) had said to me.

I looked up from my tiny chair, where I was outfitted with ropes and a probable life sentence. The ropes chafed uncomfortably against my wrists. “What? Why?”

The colonel sighed. “He’s been a nuisance for a while. We need someone on the inside.”

I asked a very valid question. “Why me?”

He gestured around the room tiredly. “You got in here, didn’t you?”

Valid point. “What if I refuse?”

“The imprisonment becomes permanent.”

That was, unfortunately, also a valid point. I stood up and proclaimed, “I’ll do it!” as if I had the idea myself. What other choice did I have?

“Good.” There were dark circles under his eyes. “You start on Tuesday. See me and the other officers in the tent after you put on some clean clothes.”

 I didn’t have any clean clothes at that point in my budding military career, but I didn’t bother to remind him.

Anyway, it turned out swell. I stole a pair from my bunkmate and snagged his bar of soap for good measure. His future bunkmate could deal with his… idiosyncratic body odor.

The men are still fighting. Some of them lie on the ground unconscious. The others straggle up to get their delicious bowl of gruel.

“Soup’s up,” I say, slopping a generous amount into the first customer. “Get all of your necessary vitamins and viruses right here.”

“What’s a virus?” said the next man in line. He’s middle-aged and tired, probably because the thought of coming into their thirties makes everyone a bit weary. I wince. My education was showing.

“Nothing. I like making words up. Off you go!” I say, and off he goes.

The rush hour of dinner time is finally over, and only the dregs of the pot remain. It’s a feat of intellectual pursuit to discern what actually constitutes the meal, in a gut-turning kind of way. That way, I know exactly what to never consume again in my life. (Now that I think about it,  _ I  _ was the one who chose the ingredients.)

A child comes up and asks me, holding the bowl up pitifully, “Please, sir, may I have some more?” He’s dressed in rags and smells about as nice as they look.

“That’s an anachronism,” I say. “Besides, what are you doing here? You’re not army age. You don’t belong here.”

“Neither do you,” he says. “Hey, look, a mockingbird.” When I turn back around, he’s vanished. The mockingbird cleverly mocks me with its chirps.

Honestly? That’s not the weirdest thing that’s ever happened to me.

I shake my head, wondering if that was some induced hallucination from the food fumes, and the fire beneath it continues to flicker.

Night has fallen in the camp, but all of the soldiers are outside cleaning the latrines amid much grumbling and pinching of the nose. At least, they try to, but the unfortunate buggers don’t realize that it takes two hands to wield a shovel.

The non-soldiers, what’s referred to as the  _ help,  _ consists of me and two other boys. They’re younger than I am, most likely brothers of some other close relation to one of the of-age soldiers. We were assigned to clean the stables.

The stables are always a joy. They (and my  _ best _ friend Jeb, of course) are arguably also the most important aspect of the camp and incredibly valuable towards the Confederate efforts in the Civil War. Not only is Jeb a good tactician, but he trained and commanded a cavalry that is changing the course of the war. 

While the concept and deployment of cavalries in itself isn’t a revolutionary method of war, Jeb Stuart utilizes it in a very different way than most military commanders: he uses the cavalry for speed and relaying crucial information about battles and the enemy’s positions.

I’m not usually a current events buff. I had to do some research before I was sent to spy on the Confederacy. It would have been downright embarrassing to saunter into the camp and not know a whit about its commanding officer.

Why they assign the inferiors to maintain and buff the Confederacy’s pride and joy, I have absolutely no idea. Maybe the other soldiers compulsively sneak out at night to curry the horses when we go to sleep. With some of the egomaniacal dunderheads that are here, I wouldn’t be too surprised.

I’m in the stable. The smell of manure burns my nostrils, but I’m spared the sight of the gruesome smears because darkness covers the majority of the interior. Moonlight catches on the straw, and I grip my pitchfork and hope to any deity that’ll listen that the crap isn’t fresh.

The other two farmhands (we’re not, but it’s easier to refer to us as such) are hard at work. I can’t see them, but I hear the  _ scritch scritch  _ of their shovels and the heavy  _ thump  _ as fresh bales of straw are dropped and spread on the floor.

Trying not to inhale too deeply, I pant, then promptly freeze as I hear footsteps. Boots tread heavily upon the wooden entrance of the barn, then muffled when straw is underfoot. A shadow, thick and long, looms up on the wall opposite of me. I jump, expecting the worst, and turn around.

It’s a man, average height, wearing the single largest hat I have ever seen. It’s massive and has a long feather stuck in the brim. Mockingbird feather.

“Sir!” I drop my pitchfork hastily and salute, hear the other boys stop working as they stop to listen. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”

Goddamn, ‘pleasure’? We were in a stable. Besides, what sort of helper boy would phrase his greeting as such?

Would… would he notice my slip-up?

The man doesn’t pay the comment any mind, and my shoulders sag with relief.

He lights a lantern, and my jaw drops. His outfit… I’m not sure I can ever describe it as one. It’s an outfit caught in between ‘fashionable’ and ‘monstrosity.’ 

Uh, this is Jeb Stuart, the general; leader of the cavalry, strategist extraordinaire. 

He also pays me no mind. “I need the horses for tomorrow,” he says imperiously. “We’re going to battle in Chancellorsville.”

“Ch-Chancellorsville? But we’re― ahem, the Union Army― is much much bigger.” Another slip-up, in front of the person I’m meant to spy on no less. I’m terrible at my job.

“Yes.” Luckily, Jeb continues to ignore me. “The cavalry is going to trick the Union army into stopping in a poor defensive position.” He rubs his hands deviously, sounding almost excited. “Then I’m going to supervise the command of a corps of our infantrymen under Stonewall Jackson. It’s going to be one of my greatest victories, I guarantee it.” 

He suddenly looks at me as if he just remembered that I’m there. “But of course, none of that applies to you.”

“No, of course not, sir,” I say, but internally my mind is running around banging pots and pans as l try not to fist-pump in victory. 

Jeb turns around and leaves. His cloak swirls behind him in a flash of red, and then he’s gone, leaving me in stunned silence.

It seems a little too neat, that Jeb comes in and delivers this crucial piece of information to me that I desperately need, but I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Still, it gives me pause. 

The worst case scenario is that someone suspects that I am a spy, and sent a (well dressed) Confederate as Stuart to test me and my loyalty. On the other hand, the best case scenario is that Jeb truly needs to flaunt his brilliant plan to someone, and it happened to me because I’m about as important to the Confederacy’s well being as the straw that covers my mud-caked boots.

Judging from the things I hear about Stuart on the battlefield (he’s egotistical, prideful, and a show-off), I think it’s more likely that the best case scenario is the correct circumstance; which is perfect, and exactly what I need. With this information, I can leave camp, return to the Union side, and stop hiding covertly and pretending and scheming. 

Also, winning the war. That’s important too.

I finish doing a terrible job of cleaning the stables and leave the stink behind me. It’s night, the sun having set while I was inside, and my stomach grumbles. Despite knowing the unappetizing food that remains when all of the broth is taken, I approach the communal pot.

It’s disgusting. Soggy chunks lie despondently at the bottom and all of the metal is coated in cooking grease. I walk away, intestines twisting painfully.

The campfire isn’t far away and I approach it wearily, sitting on one of the felled trunks in its vicinity, and bet with some random man over a slice of hardtack. If it can be passed under the description of a slice, in reality it resembles an ugly cracker. I win and immediately regret the victory when I bite into it. I think one of my teeth has been knocked loose.

The fire crackles merrily, and the soldiers circled around it are swapping stories, laughing and eating, or staring into the flames.

I sit there for a time quietly, just enjoying, and watch the stars wheel overhead. Group by group, everyone else leaves, and I take a stick and poke at the dying embers, peaceful. When my eyes begin to close, I return to my cabin, quietly opening the door and closing it behind me.

After tiptoeing to my bed, I lie down, my cot creaking, and listen to my bunkmate’s gentle snoring. I turn my head wearily, hoping to spot a star out of the window, but the only sight I see is the glimmer of the dying campfire against the glass.

I wake up to a pounding on my cabin door. I jolt up, automatically grasping the blanket to cover my chest in the case of an unprecedented entrance. My bunkmate is elsewhere, however, and I am alone. Alone, and with a group of (twelve) angry men directly outside.

“Open up!” It’s a gruff male voice. I hear the chatter and grumble of other men behind him, the grinding of their boots on the hard packed dirt of the campground.

I freeze up, terrified. I am discovered. What would they do to a girl in a military camp? Throw me out? Put me in jail? Take adv― no, I refuse to think about that option. These men were ruffians, but they weren’t  _ barbarians _ . At least, that’s what I tell myself. In situations such as these, there is no room for doubt.

Pitching my voice lower, I ask, “Who’s there?” It’s better to play the idiot, always. Underestimation is a powerful tool.

“We don’t need to justify our actions to  _ spies,”  _ another soldier hisses.

Oh.

This was even worse than I thought. In Jeb Stuart’s camp, the penalty for espionage for the opposite side is death. I can’t even imagine what they’d do when they discover I’m a girl.

The men bang on my door, shouting and screaming, but the door holds firm.

I can’t breathe. Distantly, I am aware of my body moving around the room on autopilot, gathering my things and shoving into a leather satchel that I’ve hidden under my cot for this exact situation. My shoulder slams into the wall, but I don’t feel it, numb.

My breath comes fast, rasping dryly in my throat. I can feel my heartbeat pounding in my shoulders, my chest, my neck. My hands are shaking and I fumble my satchel. No time for errors here. 

To run or not to run, that is the question. But there is no question here.

Everything is packed, and my shoulder throbs. With every heartbeat, I mentally run through an item in my bag. _Thump_. Food and a canteen of water. _Thump_. Bar of soap. _Thump_. Clothes. _Thump_ ―

I hear the door splinter, starting to give in. All of the men’s combined strength overcome everything, and the rusted hinges squeak and the wood groans.

I can’t breathe. I’m at the window, balling up the blanket from my bed and covering my elbow and smashing it into the window, sending glass everywhere. I bend to pick up a shard, holding it tightly because I don’t know if I will drop it, and if push comes to shove and yells come to shots, I have to defend myself to the death. 

Taking the life of another man always seemed so distant, so unattached and emotional; but now it’s a frighteningly reality. I don’t want to die; I want to live, live and breathe another day, sit in the soft grass, splash in the cold stream, feel the sun on my bare shoulders…

I can’t do that now. It’s thundering outside and rain is pouring down in buckets as I jump out the window and drop onto the dirt, which forms a mud that clings to my shoes (I must have put them on at some point, I don’t  _ remember _ ) and splatters my calves. My hair, undone, clumps up before my eyes and I shake it away. Tears mingle with the water running down my face, and I muffle a sob because there’s no time. There’s no time, I need to get away, and I can’t  _ breathe _ ―

I sprint into the woods, the shard cutting red stinging lines across my palm. I run for a long time, and my lungs burn.

The forest is also burning. Smoke chokes the air, thick and black and all-consuming. It clouds my vision and burns my skin, eyes smarting and stinging, but I have no time to wipe the hot tears away. 

I am running. I don’t know who I am running from at this point: all I know is  _ why _ I’m running. Yes, I have a  _ purpose,  _ and I must keep that purpose crystal clear in my mind because I have to warn them. I have to get to the Union’s pre-established reconnaissance spot and say the important information, crucial information, information that must not be forgotten, recited perfectly, otherwise―

The forest is littered with nature’s debris. Sticks are scattered across the dirt, intermingled with the burnt leaves of spring. Each step I take sends them scattering under my boots. The ones consumed by flames crackle and crinkle as I trod on them, hissing and spitting, and smoke emanates from the fresh foliage.

I can’t inhale properly. Every breath I take wheezes in my lungs, and I cough and choke as I struggle to gasp in the air that I’m losing from my exertion, my frantic scramble towards safety.

This place is extremely familiar, although it’s difficult to recount in the heat of the moment. I… I think I remember that tree, and then I spot that clump of withered wineberry bushes with no small amount of relief. They’re barely recognizable now, thorns swallowed by the tongues of flame that lap around them. The dry, dead undergrowth blocking my path catches flame as easily as if it had been doused with gasoline. I know this place, though, and that might be my salvation. 

I remember the grove beyond the flames as where I camped last week, my first night in the Confederate then. We moved on from this part of the forest since then, but if I took the time to scrutinize the place, I can make it out as the location where we set up last night when the sun set. The fire pit had been lit, the thick smell of cooking meat (it hadn’t run out then) wafting through the air and set numerous tongues a-watering. We were seated around the circle of stones together, an unlikely camaraderie. It had been a tolerable, if not enjoyable, evening. They had welcomes me, and we had laughed together, told jokes and exchanged stories of a better place than this damned war, better times than this era of death and destruction.

The fire is no longer behind me, in fact it never was; it continues to blaze through my entire field of vision. I stop running as I reach the boundaries, heels skidding against the pebbles under my feet, and bend down to grab something, anything, that can help me make my way forward and pave the next step of the journey. 

My fingers close against a long stick as thick and dirty as my wrist, and I swing it in a fruitless effort to clear away some of the singeing undergrowth. The wood is rasping and sizzling and my hands open unconsciously, and it thumps unceremoniously beside me.

There is only one choice left to try, and I might have once been scared to try it, but as I face a witch’s condemnation behind me, the risk seemed a far better option. I attempt to take the largest gulp of air I can, holding what remains my filthy, tattered shirt against my mouth, and run as fast and hard as I can towards the wall of flame ahead of me. As I crash through, I’m hoping, begging, praying, and then I’m on the other side, twisting in an attempt to roll and absorb the shock of the fall.

I feel myself fly through the air. I’m caught in a brief eternal moment of flight, and I hang there with the smoke and the birds and the burning sky. For a moment, I am free.

But nothing can last forever, and as I tumble to the ground pain blooms and ignites in my shoulder, shooting down my left arm in tendrils of fire. Orange and red swallow my vision, and then everything is black.

I wake up in a bed. A real bed, not the lumpy cots filled with straw that leave you scratching with lice bites. (Nasty little buggers. Lice bites itch like all hell.) The bed that I’m in is soft, most likely stuffed with goose feathers or some other kind of waterfowl.

Speaking of which. I crack open one eye, and after adjusting to the bright sunlight streaming in through the open window, I make out a bird perched on the window ledge.

“Hello,” I croak. “You don’t live near water.”

The mockingbird twitters back at me. I make to reach for it, but find ropes holding my wrists together. My arms are roughly tied with a sort of cast, and the wrist is bent at an odd angle. I tug at the bindings and hiss.

The mockingbird hops once and scuffs the windowpane with its feet before taking flight. It lands some distance away on a boy’s shoulder. The boy is young and outfitted with a white chef’s hat that slips over his eyes.

Now that I think about it, the Confederates are awfully nice to give me a nice bed after I almost betrayed them. I guess top-priority prisoners have perks of their own.

I lay in the bed alone for about an hour or so before I hear a yell, then the clatter of the cooking pot as it spills over. The boy must have knocked it off its stand. The shadow of the mockingbird flashes on the opposite wall of the room, and I hear a slight whistling of its wings as it soars away.

The pot is filled with grease, compiled from the endless amounts of meals cooked and the fact that I never washed it the entire week that I was the cook. Sticks and logs litter the ground, and all of the surrounding trees that have been downed and scattered for the coming of spring are lying dead and rotting on the ground. 

I smell the burning almost instantly and hear the first screams a moment later. 

The flames are a cleansing, an advancement into purity.

Some might call this experience a trial by fire, but I disagree. After all, those who play with fire are bound to get burned.

I smile.

**Author's Note:**

> The end is supposed to be confusing. I meant to clarify it but by then I had already hit 4k words and I didn't want to print out that many pages.  
> I got an 85 on this: one student grader gave me a 95, the other gave me a 70. Fuck you, anonymous grader-- I still got an A for the entire year.
> 
> Will anyone read this? Only the hits counter will tell.
> 
> Comments make my day and kudos make the world go round.


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